> Let's not forget this same company also promised to "don't be evil", and then changed their mind.

I've heard this ridiculous statement so many times. Do you think a company needs to put "don't be evil" to stop itself from doing evil things and then needs to go ahead and remove that phrase because otherwise it simply cannot proceed with evil? Sounds like a joke. We're talking about humans not robots here.

That said, I don't get why Google gets singled out all the time while all other players often play a dirtier game.

> I've heard this ridiculous statement so many times. Do you think a company needs to put "don't be evil" to stop itself from doing evil things and then needs to go ahead and remove that phrase because otherwise it simply cannot proceed with evil? Sounds like a joke. We're talking about humans not robots here.

My point was that Google has a history of making public statements that make themselves look good, and then backing down on them later. Maybe 5 years ago they didn't data mine Google Analytics, but who knows what their policy is now or when they may change it? I'm not saying the OP is wrong, just that I'd like more evidence than "they said so."

> That said, I don't get why Google gets singled out all the time while all other players often play a dirtier game.

Because Google went out of their way to tell everybody they were going to be different.